Yan Haipeng, Li Xun, Luo Ting, Zeng Xiaohui, Li Xiao, Xie Longlong, Wang Xiangyu, Yang Yufan, Zhang Xinping, Huang Jiaotian, Liu Pingping, Luo Lan, Cao Jianshe, Zhou Haiyin, Lu Xiulan, Xiao Zhenghui
General Emergency Ward & Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Emergency Medicine for Children, The Affiliated Children's Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University (Hunan Children's Hospital), Changsha, China.
Pediatrics Research Institute of Hunan Province & Pediatric Intensive Care Unit & Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Emergency Medicine for Children, School of Medicine, The Affiliated Children's Hospital of Xiangya, Central South University (Hunan Children's Hospital), Changsha, China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 19;15(1):9503. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-92101-w.
Sepsis, a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection, has an approximately 25% in-hospital mortality rate. Identifying early biomarkers of pediatric sepsis is crucial for improving outcomes. This study explored the differential expression of peptides in patients with sepsis compared to healthy controls and those with common infections using plasma peptidomic analysis. Blood samples were collected from 10 pediatric patients with sepsis admitted to Hunan Children's Hospital in 2021, along with 20 age- and sex-matched healthy controls and five children with common infections. Differential peptide precursor proteins underwent gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses and protein-protein interaction analysis using the STRING database. Intotal, 3149 endogenous peptides corresponding to 480 precursor proteins were identified. Compared to the healthy group, the sepsis group exhibited 1113 differentially expressed peptides, with 880 upregulated and 233 downregulated. Compared with the common infection group, the sepsis group showed 181 upregulated and 86 downregulated peptides. These differences were primarily in the humoral immune response and complement and coagulation cascades. This study identified specific alterations in peptide expression in the plasma of patients with sepsis, most notably in peptides related to SAA1, complement C3, hemoglobin, and haptoglobin. These peptides are involved in the acute inflammatory response, complement system, and free hemoglobin pathways, indicating their crucial roles in sepsis pathology. These findings provide new insights into the mechanisms of sepsis and suggest potential applications for these peptides in sepsis diagnosis and treatment, to enhance early diagnosis and therapeutic outcomes.
脓毒症是由宿主对感染的失调反应引起的危及生命的器官功能障碍，其院内死亡率约为25%。识别小儿脓毒症的早期生物标志物对于改善预后至关重要。本研究采用血浆肽组学分析，探讨脓毒症患者与健康对照者以及常见感染患者相比肽的差异表达。收集了2021年入住湖南省儿童医院的10例小儿脓毒症患者的血样，以及20例年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者和5例常见感染患儿的血样。对差异肽前体蛋白进行基因本体论和京都基因与基因组百科全书通路富集分析，并使用STRING数据库进行蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用分析。总共鉴定出对应于480种前体蛋白的3149种内源性肽。与健康组相比，脓毒症组有1113种差异表达肽，其中880种上调，233种下调。与常见感染组相比，脓毒症组有181种上调肽和86种下调肽。这些差异主要存在于体液免疫反应以及补体和凝血级联反应中。本研究确定了脓毒症患者血浆中肽表达的特定变化，最显著的是与血清淀粉样蛋白A1（SAA1）、补体C3、血红蛋白和触珠蛋白相关的肽。这些肽参与急性炎症反应、补体系统和游离血红蛋白途径，表明它们在脓毒症病理过程中起关键作用。这些发现为脓毒症的发病机制提供了新的见解，并提示这些肽在脓毒症诊断和治疗中的潜在应用，以提高早期诊断和治疗效果。
